Category Archives: London Wildlife Trust

Join the London Wildlife Trust for a guided walk of Sydenham Hill Wood to discover bats, moths and tawny owls. Using bat detectors, our site warden and volunteers will reveal a hidden, nocturnal world in urban south London.

Sydenham Hill Wood is part ancient woodland, one of the largest remaining fragments of the Great North Wood which once stretched from Deptford to Selhurst. The following species have been recorded at the Wood: soprano pipistrelle, common pipisrelle, nathusius pipistrelle, brown long-eared, natterer’s, Leisler’s, noctule and serotine.

Tawny owls are known to breed in the Wood and the local area and can be heard calling in daylight hours as well as in the deep of night. Males call ‘twoo’ and females ‘ke-wick’.

They will have a moth trap in the main glade to exhibit some of the many beautiful species which can be found in the Wood.

This is a free walk, a minimum donation of £2 towards their work is recommended

If you love Sydenham Hill Wood please help them protect it in the long term by becoming a London Wildlife Trust member

Join London Wildlife Trust staff and volunteers for our annual bat walk at Sydenham Wells Park. Bat calls are largely undetectable to the human ear and so we will be using bat detectors to listen to the sounds of these wonderful mammals. Bats use sonar or echolocation to hunt for prey during the night, sending sound out into the world around them to create an aural picture of their surroundings. Each bat has a different call from which they can be identified.

Sydenham Wells Park is a remnant of the Great North Wood, an ancient landscape of woods and commons which once stretched from Deptford to Selhurst. There are lots of bats to be seen (and heard) at the Park including noctule, Leisler, common and soprano pipistrelles.

Previous walks at the Park have provided a large number of sightings of bats, but patience is required in the early stages.

If there is heavy rain or thunderstorms the walk will be postponed to a later date.

Join the London Wildlife Trust’s Sydenham Hill Wood Conservation Officer Daniel Greenwood for a guided bird walk. We will be listening to and observing the array of bird species present at the Wood.

June is the height of the bird breeding season, meaning that birds will be most active before the late summer when many species begin to moult after a tiring few months of raising young and defending territories.

We are likely to see the staple woodland species of wren, robin, blackbird, woodpigeon, and to hear migrant blackcap and chiffchaff, as well as nuthatch and stock dove. There is always an outside chance of kestrel, sparrowhawk and our resident tawny owl.

Please wear suitable footwear for a woodland with rugged paths, steps and gentle inclines. If there is prolonged heavy rain, thunderstorms or high winds the walk will be cancelled.

This is a free walk, a minimum donation of £2 towards our work is recommended

If you love Sydenham Hill Wood please help the London Wildlife Trust protect it in the long term by becoming a London Wildlife Trust member

Join London Wildlife Trust for a guided walk to spot the violets, bluebells, primroses and buttercups that mark a special time in Sydenham Hill Wood. Sydenham Hill Wood is home to plants, animals and fungi that show it has been covered by trees since the 1600s, with some parts linking back to the prehistoric wildwood

We will also keep an eye out for spring birds, butterflies and the trees coming into leaf

This is a free walk, a minimum donation of £2 towards London Wildlife Trust’s work is recommended

Join the London Wildlife Trust for an early morning bird walk in the woods. They’ll be looking and listening out for the many species of birds that use the woods at this time of year.

The dawn chorus is one of the most important dates in nature’s calendar. Sydenham Hill Wood is a part ancient and secondary woodland with a diverse strcuture of habitats. This means the Wood is rich in biodiversity and is especially good for its bird species.

Recent dawn chorus walks have led to encounters with kestrel, song thrush, green woodpecker, nuthatch and hunting tawny owl. Though there is much to see at this time in the morning, the main purpose of the walk will be to tune into the aural ambience of this very special landscape.

London Wildlife Trust’s ‘Urban Urchins’ started in August 2017 and is aiming to map the distribution of London’s hedgehog population. This is being achieved through the use of footprint tunnel and camera trap surveys across many of our own reserves, the creation of ‘detective kits’ for the public to use in their own gardens and by asking the public to send us their hedgehog sightings.

We are looking for more parks, nature reserves, allotments and other green spaces who would be willing to put up posters asking the public to record London’s hedgehogs for us. I’ve attached a PDF of the poster, should you wish to distribute any copies. If you could let me know the locations that the posters end up, that would be great.

If you are interested in running some hedgehog surveys in your area, we may be able to offer training, support and equipment, so please get in touch. Hedgehogs can be surveyed from April-October. We can also offer to come and speak about hedgehogs with local interest groups.

You can find more information about the project, including the interactive sightings map, here.